What a ridiculous thing
to avoid what makes you hurt.
A refusal to acknowledge
the prickers on the cactus
or the shattered glass gleaming.
But I'm attracted to the green,
to the glitter of the deathly dirt,
calling me unfairly close--
"just look at me."
Like the sharp blades of grass
looking for a whistle,
grip a piece and pull--
I'll slice your palm passively.

I yearn so much,
I cannot stop from pressing a finger
into my bruises to make them stay put.

I am the moon
Illuminating the darkness which paralyzes my trust.
At night is when I feel both familiar and yet not at all--
I could disappear. Evaporate.
I could Exhale slowly and become a living eclipse.
Am I the moon?

I am the owl
Sighing into the breeze with a long, aged heaviness.
Do you know how many lives I’ve lived?
I exist beyond illusion. Wait for me on the other side.
Tree limbs like train stations. Infinite platforms.
Am I the owl?

I am the farmhouse
Staring into the cul-de-sac with calm, focused intent.
Memories of nothing and pictures of no one come very strangely to mind.
I miss standing here alone. I miss the apathetic.
I used to feel only me.
Am I the farmhouse?

I am the wooden spoon
Stirring the *** filled with ancestor’s palates.
An unforgivable connection found deep in salt and simmer,
I taste a feeling I cannot find in another.
I wonder if I could hold a house together.
Am I the wooden spoon?

breakfast with you
dripping with innuendo
and that duck hunt hat
makes me feel like i’m being put to bat
a test
a request
for me to take the mistakes of my past
and not let them permeate
every interaction
each moment of satisfaction
knowing we’ve hit a home run
and the struggle to maintain
so it doesn’t all come undone
is an effort to find sacred balance.
there are things we know
that keep uncovering themselves like fossils
making it feel impossible
to pretend that this is the stuff of dreams
it’s a trap, a traipse through memory
and certainty
and it makes me feel crazy,
a feeling i don’t own too well
yet wear so easily you can tell
how anxious i am to leave before knowing
what you’re like in the fall
in the winter
in the spring
and that’s the thing,
it’s a burden of time

The thing is, the town grew restless
living deep within the dustbowl,
so they placed mountains behind the hills
gave the general store a roof,
then each bar a row of stools
which will never sit empty.

We sewed eyes beside our buttons
as eager as our own
and asked eyes to reveal
the depth of our despair.

And because the present blurred our future
dusty hands met moonlit faces,
triggers received a finger;
their bodies sleek, shining handles.

Even what lay hidden from our vision
was radiated from their fires;
we made memories into bones,
photographs screaming out,
wet tongues lashing,
so we could walk into sanctuary.

I retreated from something, I retreated. I didn’t want that.
Intermittent stars of isolation, this heart drenched with
honeysuckle,
delicate with hopes and fears.
How peaceful to say, “I am contented,”
and have it be so,
and see you speak sans hesitation the moment you open your
lips.
Yet we fool each other --
“Move forward at the touch.” “Give me your certainty.”
To the end we each seek, pretending not to be tired.

There is nothing
like the buzzing
of your own heart
in your own ears.
Nothing greater
nothing worse
only dissonant
rhythmic changes
as you rise
and fall.

The pound
pound
pound
of pulse
breaking through
innocent
blue veins,
coaxing a response
out of limp,
lifeless wrists.

You scratch,
nothing but swift,
apathetic strokes
while knives
slice pomegranates
too full
too excited
to resist
spilling everything.

One inch
is one state
two miles
of thousands
on the map
but the key
camouflages
the most convenient
escape routes.

If you want to
touch
and feel,
find refuge,
be alive:
fight with the ***** deckhands,
throw your hands up,
let it be.

When I was young
and summer was fresh
I used to watch
the worms
bathe in the driveway
during a heavy rain.

They danced about
the pavement,
their pink flesh
speckled with dirt,
soaking up the droplets
so freely driven
d
o
w
n
w
a
r
d
from the heavens.

And I would think
how nice to be a worm.

Days spent digging,
handless groping
through brown tunnels,
unseeing eyes peeled,
searching for a spouse
to do the dirt dance with
before introducing them
to the big, mean world
above.

And I’m still thinking
how nice to be a worm.

Focused only on
living,
crawling,
feeling,
never finding the time
to notice
the enthusiasm
of a thunderstorm
when children
press their noses
to windows
and wonder
what worms
are really all about.

I fall in love
with an average
of 13 people
per day.
It’s the little things
that move me
in such unconventional
ways.
Strange, crinkled eyes
and misshapen smiles
help me
to forget
my own denial.
Reach out to me,
touch me,
remind me
of the existence
of something.
Strangers
whose hands
have textures
I don’t recognize,
I surprise
myself
with connection,
though it’s familiarity
is not foreign,
it is in fact
a trait
I revel in.
I push myself
willfully
into their worlds,
like curling
back over
moss-covered stones
into new homes,
into deep wells,
to satisfy a longing
to smell
the waves
of their existence.
I am lost
where I do not belong,
in Thanksgiving evenings
begging brothers
to play songs
while mothers
clean kitchens
and little ones
flinch
over whose game
was won,
while porch arguments
rise
over memories
come undone.
I fall in love
with
the histories
and the fallacies,
of strangers
whose shoes
do not fit me,
of he’s
and she’s
whose subtle,
brief moments
help me find in them
some peaceful atonement
for the ones
I actually allowed
myself
to leave.
Do you see in my brown eyes
what I see in your blues?
Would I love you
if I really knew you?

There is a pile of children’s blocks stacked up beside this mother’s apron; they spell out centuries of secluded memories, long since forgotten, purposefully or not. They carry our futures back into our pasts, delicate fingers tearing letters which gravitated together to reveal each precious truth of our existence.

And only time has told, will tell, that the understanding is ours alone until the remainder are ready; the whole spectrum of them, beyond family and friends, plus all of their stories stained into our skin. Such sweet sacred dirt unearthed by surprising realizations and uncovered destinations that we simply can’t ignore anymore.

Our interlocked worlds are willing and breathless, revved up to conquer both ocean and sky; you and I, we swing swiftly on crescents of moons, reaching clusters of stars with sharp, charming limbs. The planets keep secrets they won’t tell aloud, but the point is the shift, progressive and planned, and all we must do is keep on.

I can only predict, mere musings in certainty, the impending events in my old, anxious hands: two brilliant hearts working swiftly in tandem, exposing rivers of dreams under orange-tinted skies. Our souls open wide, blissful and free, illuminated from the fire of invisible suns. And through the colors in our eyes we see untamed heat, ready to be contained and trained.

The stars had it right, their secrets are ours, and we know them to be both burden and gift. We’ll unlock the gates, leave them unbound and clear; to close them would cause a commotion. And last but not least, the final release, as we position each clock face down in the earth to create paths for forgotten time.

--

Truth: one day we’ll reach into the darkest depths of our pockets to grasp the skeleton keys that bind us both to the past: you hide mine, I’ll hide yours, and our love will meet in the middle.

Today I discovered.

Nothing is mine;

It's yours, too.


The lip prints on my bowl,

the wax fingers skewed across my dresser,

the messages through the dust on the mirror:

"Truth and Life!" traced into the reflection,

screaming at me while I put on face.


The blood stains on my sheets,

the dried, brown splotches I hold so grossly dear

from the night you leaned into cracked knuckles,

freshly broken from punching bag warfare.

Imprinted forever in my bed.

On my skin.


While I am veiled in fragile sleep,

there happens a union of elements:

your old blood mixed with my cold sweat.

I can't help but

reaching out to feel

the air where you were.


The marks blacken

as the weeks pass,

as they stain deeper.

And the silence grows deafening.


Even the carpet feels ***** and permeated,

so violated,

in the wake of you.

As if it were your territory to mark.

As if.


What remains is naught.

I own nothing but my soul,

tattered and tired,

a weather-stained tome

of regrets and grievances.


Though the pages hang,

wet and flimsy,

they dry slowly

and find themselves still readable.

This is the heart of the soul:

It bruises, but it sustains.


But.

If only to bring the soul into water,

clear and new;

If only.


And at the end of it,

I could scrub for hours.

But you'd still linger there.


On my sheets.
Your sheets.
Our bed.

Remembering receives a new definition
each year, each year we grow older
as our numbers change
as our figures fade
as our hands fly further
from our mother’s;
hands are for lovers
now.

Memories are stripped,
constructed suddenly
from ideas, from education,
no longer genuine
as logic takes precedence,
blurring the edges.
Childhood is obviously
the reason you can’t sustain
as an adult.
Or so they tell you.

Welcome to the “good times,”
No picture books to flip,
puzzles to arrange,
just
taxes, bills, magazines,
****** onto us
so swiftly
by whoever made the rule
that imagination dies
as soon as the clock
starts ticking.